232 THE PRINCIPLES OF HANDLING WOODLANDS 



ly true of some of the oaks. A fire will sometimes run 

 through such brush and do an immense amount of dam- 

 age. Such a fire is called a brush fire. It is carried 

 along in part by the burning of the litter, but, wherever 

 the opportunity offers, it runs up through the dried 

 leaves, remaining on the brush. In the eastern United 

 States a brush fire is most likely to run during the late 

 fall. Under ordinary circumstances it has rather the 

 character of a surface fire than that of a crown fire 



Fires running through young stands of conifers con- 

 sume the foliage and readily kill the trees. In a very 

 young stand, in which the trees stand isolated and the 

 crowns have not yet grown together, the fire has the 

 nature of a surface fire, intensified by the burning crowns. 

 If the crowns meet, and there is a more or less complete 

 canopy, a true crown fire is developed. 



A special class of brush fires are those in the chaparral 

 of the Southwest. The brush is dense and there are 

 many species with inflammable foliage. In many places 

 a thick layer of litter and humus is formed on the 

 ground, just as in a dense forest. Fires in this class of 

 scrub forest are very fierce and destructive. They are 

 analogous to fires in dense stands of young conifers. 



Ground Fires 



This term is applied to the slow fires that burn in the 

 deep accumulations of vegetable matter common in many 

 of our damp Northern forests. Here the fallen leaves, 

 needles, and other off castings of the trees decompose 



